


Triptych - Ron

by marginalia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-20
Updated: 2004-10-20
Packaged: 2018-10-10 17:16:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10443009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginalia/pseuds/marginalia





	

Ron didn't know. Hermione tried to tell him, Harry tried to hide it, and still he didn't know. He was strangely unaware.

Not entirely, of course. He knew things were horribly wrong, but he believed it would be sorted in the end. Nothing so dark would happen that it could not be reversed, that it could not be fought by those he was still innocent enough to trust.

Ron would do what he could, and even what he thought he couldn't, but he would never directly fight the dark. Ron fought always without reflection and wholeheartedly for those he loved.

::

Pure fear ran like ice through his veins. Ron had read stories when he was small about brave wizards and young boys and quests, and he thought that he could be like them. He thought that he could stand up and kill the dragon and be not afraid.

The last night in the Burrow, he paged through the books where the beasts roared and thrashed, and the heroes stood stalwart and as still as Muggle art.

The dragon was nothing any of them could see, and the painted boy could not tell him that the fear never truly goes away.

::

After, it is quiet, and Ron likes it that way. He has his flat and his work. He is living. There are still people worth living for.

He goes down to the pub some nights, some nights round the corner for a bit of wizard chess. Maurice makes tea the Muggle way, and Ron thinks it's worth the wait. They talk of everything behind the chatter of nothing, and Ron listens closer now, because he knows no victory is decisive.

Today he got an owl from Ginny, aglow with her studies. He thinks he will visit Dean in the spring.


End file.
